sphinx-autoapi/docs/tutorials.rst

Tutorials
=========

Setting up Automatic API Documentation Generation
-------------------------------------------------

This tutorial will assume that you already have a basic Sphinx project set up.
If you are not sure how to do this,
you can follow the :doc:`sphinx:usage/quickstart` guide in the Sphinx documentation.

The recommended way of installing AutoAPI is through a `virtualenv <https://virtualenv.pypa.io/>`_.
Once you have a virtualenv set up, you can install AutoAPI with the command:

==========   ======================================
Language     Command
==========   ======================================
Python       ``pip install sphinx-autoapi``
Go           ``pip install sphinx-autoapi[go]``
Javascript   ``pip install sphinx-autoapi``
.NET         ``pip install sphinx-autoapi[dotnet]``
==========   ======================================

Depending on which language you are trying to document,
each language has a different set of steps for finishing the setup of AutoAPI:

.. contents::
    :local:
    :backlinks: none


Python
^^^^^^

To enable the extension,
we need to add it to the list of extensions in Sphinx's ``conf.py`` file::

    extensions = ['autoapi.extension']

For Python, there is only one required configuration option that we need to set.
:confval:`autoapi_dirs` tells AutoAPI which directories contain
the source code to document.
These can either be absolute, or relative to where you run Sphinx.
For example, say we have a package and we have used ``sphinx-quickstart``
to create a Sphinx project in a ``docs/`` folder.
The directory structure might look like this:

.. code-block:: none

    mypackage/
    ├── docs
    │   ├── _build
    │   ├── conf.py
    │   ├── index.rst
    │   ├── make.bat
    │   ├── Makefile
    │   ├── _static
    │   └── _templates
    ├── mypackage
    │   ├── _client.py
    │   ├── __init__.py
    │   └── _server.py
    └── README.md

``sphinx-quickstart`` sets up the ``sphinx-build`` to run from
inside the ``docs/`` directory, and the source code is one level up.
So the value of our :confval:`autoapi_dirs` option would be::

    autoapi_dirs = ['../mypackage']

If you are documenting many packages,
you can point AutoAPI to the directory that contains those packages.
For example if our source code was inside a ``src/`` directory:

.. code-block:: none

    mypackage/
    ├── docs
    │   ├── _build
    │   ├── conf.py
    │   ├── index.rst
    │   ├── make.bat
    │   ├── Makefile
    │   ├── _static
    │   └── _templates
    ├── README.md
    └── src
        └── mypackage
            ├── _client.py
            ├── __init__.py
            └── _server.py

We can configure :confval:`autoapi_dirs` to be::

    autoapi_dirs = ['../src']

Now that everything is configured,
AutoAPI will generate documentation when you run Sphinx!

.. code-block:: bash

    cd docs/
    sphinx-build -b html . _build


Go
^^^

Support for Go requires you to have the go environment installed
(https://golang.org/dl/), as well as our godocjson tool::

    go get github.com/readthedocs/godocjson

and the Go domain extension for Sphinx::

    pip install sphinxcontrib-golangdomain

To enable the AutoAPI extension,
we need to add it to the list of extensions in Sphinx's ``conf.py`` file
with the Go domain extension::

    extensions = [
        'sphinxcontrib_golangdomain',
        'autoapi.extension',
    ]

For Go, there are two required configuration options that we need to set.
:confval:`autoapi_type` tells AutoAPI what type of language we are documenting.
For Go, this is::

    autoapi_type = 'go'

The second configuration option is :confval:`autoapi_dirs`,
which tells AutoAPI which directories contain the source code to document.
These can either be absolute, or relative to where you run Sphinx.
So if your documentation was inside a ``docs/`` directory
and your source code is in an ``example`` directory one level up,
you would configure :confval:`autoapi_dirs` to be::

    autoapi_dirs = ['../example']

Now that everything is configured,
AutoAPI will generate documentation when you run Sphinx!

.. code-block:: bash

    cd docs/
    sphinx-build -b html . _build


Javascript
^^^^^^^^^^

Support for Javascript requires you to have jsdoc (http://usejsdoc.org/) installed::

    npm install jsdoc -g

To enable the AutoAPI extension,
we need to add it to the list of extensions in Sphinx's ``conf.py`` file::

    extensions = ['autoapi.extension']

For Javascript, there are two required configuration options that we need to set.
:confval:`autoapi_type` tells AutoAPI what type of language we are documenting.
For Javascript, this is::

    autoapi_type = 'javascript'

The second configuration option is :confval:`autoapi_dirs`,
which tells AutoAPI which directories contain the source code to document.
These can either be absolute, or relative to where you run Sphinx.
So if your documentation was inside a ``docs/`` directory
and your source code is in an ``example`` directory one level up,
you would configure :confval:`autoapi_dirs` to be::

    autoapi_dirs = ['../example']

Now that everything is configured,
AutoAPI will generate documentation when you run Sphinx!

.. code-block:: bash

    cd docs/
    sphinx-build -b html . _build


.NET
^^^^

Support for .NET requires you to have the docfx (https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/) tool installed,
as well as the .NET domain extension for Sphinx::

    pip install sphinxcontrib-dotnetdomain

Firstly, we need to configure docfx to output to a directory known to AutoAPI.
By default, ``docfx`` will output metadata files into the ``_api`` path.
You can configure which path to output files into by setting the path in your
`docfx configuration file <https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/tutorial/docfx.exe_user_manual.html#3-docfx-json-format>`_
in your project repository.
For example, if your ``conf.py`` file is located inside a ``docs/`` directory:

.. code:: json

    {
      "metadata": [{
        "dest": "docs/_api"
      }]
    }

To enable the AutoAPI extension,
we need to add it to the list of extensions in Sphinx's ``conf.py`` file
with the .NET domain extension::

    extensions = [
        'sphinxcontrib.dotnetdomain',
        'autoapi.extension',
    ]

For .NET, there are two required configuration options that we need to set.
:confval:`autoapi_type` tells AutoAPI what type of language we are documenting.
For .NET, this is::

    autoapi_type = 'dotnet'

The second configuration option is :confval:`autoapi_dirs`,
which tells AutoAPI which directories contain the source code to document.
These can either be absolute, or relative to where you run Sphinx.
So if your documentation was inside a ``docs/`` directory
and your source code is in an ``example`` directory one level up,
you would configure :confval:`autoapi_dirs` to be::

    autoapi_dirs = ['../example']

Now that everything is configured,
AutoAPI will generate documentation when you run Sphinx!

.. code-block:: bash

    cd docs/
    sphinx-build -b html . _build